


Bright Stars (A Sherlock Holmes, Indian In The Cupboard AU)

by FleurDeLis221B



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5045914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleurDeLis221B/pseuds/FleurDeLis221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some mysteries are not meant to be solved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Autumn

It was Autumn, which was always spelled with a capital 'A' in Sylvie's mind. Of course, because proper names were always capitalized.  

That was a Rule.

In Autumn, the magical apple tree (Tolman Sweet, _Malus domestica_ , deciduous, Rose family) in the yard was merrily burdened with glowing, golden fruit, matured blossoms blushing with the tiniest pink imaginable, which were also strewn all across the grass.

When the sky was a diffuse gray of silver edges and white promises these apples glowed the brightest, but Sylvie's favorite light was just after her very early dinner, when the sinking sun on the ivy (helios, _Hedera helix_ , common English) made a lair for her hoard.

Dragon-soul, sun-worshipper, fruit of Autumn.

Sylvie loved many things, and she liked to keep them in her room.

Books, of course: They were one of the best vehicles for travel, and that was saying something. Sylvie's ceiling represented the History of Flight, hung with zeppelins, biplanes, modern rockets, and everything in between. 

Keys. They were fascinating. Found at yard-sales, in little boxes of trinkets and ornaments sold for a half-dollar. Abandoned in drawers, on old key-rings heavy with cracked charms and grime.  Found in jewelry boxes lined with crumbling velvet, or on little snippets of ribbon.

Sylvie kept them in a lidded tin with a raised pattern which looked regal, and calming, and proud.

Sylvie also loved detectives, and detective stories. The bookshelves overflowed with evidence that The Golden Age of Mystery had endeavored to slake a thirst that sprang eternal: Ellery Queen, Cyril Hare, Edmund Crispin. 

Mysteries had Rules. 

"All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course; Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable; No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Rules" excerpted from The Ten Commandments of Detective Stories as codified by Ronald Knox, 1929.


	2. Alice

"You're not making sense."

"I _am_. If Alice truly saw Wonderland, or if Dorothy travelled to Oz... It wouldn't matter or even be discernible!"

"Why?"

"People wouldn't _believe_ her, Dev. They would _assume_  she'd imagined it."

Sylvie's collected and contemptuous tone was studied. 

Inside she was rapidly vaporizing with rage, and was preparing to execute her favorite exit with the stage-presence of a true believer.

She would rise from her seat at the small oval table in the ever-warm kitchen, stamp one small foot on the floor with her full force, turn a neat circle honed by many ballet lessons and frequent petty disagreements, and leave her meal untouched from that moment onward.

Or least until midnight when everyone slept. Even if there was sticky pudding to be bartered. (Dev could never have withstood that).

Besides, she really had seen an _Actias luna_ with a minimum wingspan of five inches on the _Carpinus caroliniana_ (hornbeam, leaves alternate, edges serrate, fluffy catkins).

"A luna moth that size would be quite an anomaly, Sylvie, but if you fetch paper and pencil and sketch the specimen you encountered we promise to believe you. Don't we, Dev?"

"Yes, mum."

"Please don't sigh at the dinner-table, either of you, and remember that if you want to defend your  _Actias luna_ , which has evolved to have no mouth and die of starvation within a week, skipping dinner is perhaps a bit too symbolic a gesture."

Sylvie's mouth twitched. 

It wasn't quite a smile, but she did return to her food, however slowly, as she imagined the way the tube of lime-green would squeeze a little dot into her white plastic watercolor palette. 

The dilution incorporates the pigment in a slow-motion swirl of frog-green, bottle-green, water-green, the little brush saturates unevenly, calm chaos. 

Anomalies, leaving little streaks, drip-marks, divots, freckles, making a perfectly to-scale _Actias luna_  seem to breathe.

"Sylvie, I almost forgot, I brought home a present for you."

Sylvie's head snapped up from her butter chicken, but her eyes narrowed a bit.

"You'll want to truce for this," smiled Dev. "It's on the step."

Sylvie hopped off her seat and made haste to the door.

"It was outside The Brick Store..." Dev called after her.

It was wonderful.


	3. Locked

The cupboard was small and plain, nicked and dented, and rather dirty.

The red had escaped the stencil a bit where the medical symbol had been hurriedly affixed, and the white paint was dimpled with rust where it had been scraped and gouged. 

In short, the little cupboard had battle scars. It had character, and there was a perfect bit of wall waiting for it just above Sylvie's bed. 

Best of all, it locked. This forgotten cupboard was a safe, a vault, a dragon's keep.

"Thank you, Dev!" Sylvie hollered over her narrow shoulder as she ran to the little garden shed which she used as workshop, laboratory, and panic room. A hammer was located under a guide to pupae identification ( _Lepidoptera_ , transformations, metamorphoses), and an appropriate nail (umbrella-head unsuitable, spiral-shank excessive, brass escutcheon pin - perfect) fished from a one-quart jar.

Soon the sticky dust had been removed from the white paint with a rag and vinegar, a nail had been driven into the smooth wall (semi-gloss, viridian), and Sylvie's vault was secured quite near her pillow.

If only it had come with the key. She ran halfway down the stairs.

"Did you see a key?"

"It was probably lost years ago," Dev called from the kitchen, "try some of yours."

"A coincidence like that is _highly_ statistically improbable."

"So is an _Actias luna_ with a five-inch wingspan."

Sylvie huffed at that, shut her bedroom door slightly harder than necessary, and promptly emptied the fleur-de-lys-patterned tin onto her bed. She stared for a moment at the outline they made on the royal blue comforter.

Keys. Islands in the sea, topography of lost connections.

Only nine were close to the correct size, approximately four centimeters, and she quickly tested all of them except one.

Delicate, yet oddly heavy (filigreed bow, tiny shoulder). It fit the small lock to a door or lid long-missing, perhaps the same shade of crimson as the narrow satin ribbon, of which only a scrap remained.

"Statistically improbable," she murmured to herself like a prayer, as she held the little key in the space between her two warm hands.

Sylvie closed her eyes and squared her shoulders. She inhaled and exhaled once, slowly, through her nose.

Keys: Islands in the Sea.

Then she opened her eyes and without pausing slid the key into the lock, and turned it.


End file.
